


can’t promise you kind road below

by IceSword46



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dark, Different death same outcome, Fuck. I'm so sad., Idk I just watched the finale and I'm fucking sad, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, wow i made myself sad tonight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 22:01:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18485236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceSword46/pseuds/IceSword46
Summary: Eliot has time to figure out how to salvage the fall out from his worst memory. He just never gets the chance.





	can’t promise you kind road below

**Author's Note:**

> I saw someone say the other night that they were worried Quentin was going to die in the finale and that thought never even crossed my mind and now I'm worried and I really, really don't want that to happen. BUT, I suddenly really wanted to try and visualize one of the worst ways it could go down and then came from that. 
> 
> Title from Promises from Hadestown

Eliot wasn’t going to run away this time. The door hadn't worked properly since Penny showed up but the moment it did, Eliot was going to open it and fix things with Quentin. 

\--- 

“I know this sounds dumb, but, us, we - think about it. We work. We know it, ‘cause we lived it. Who gets that kind of proof of concept?” Quentin looks at him, eyes warm and trusting. 

“We were just injected with a half century of emotions, so, I get that maybe you’re not thinking clearly,” Eliot watches himself say.

“No, I’m saying, what if we gave it a shot? Would that be that crazy? Why the fuck not?” Quentin’s voice is full of hope and promise.

\---

Eliot wasn’t sure exactly how, or if, time was passing while he sat alone in his mental manifestation of the Physical Cottage but he had been there long enough to watch this memory play out countless times now. At first it was in hopes that a door would appear and he would be able to see Quentin and the others again. Eliot watched himself reject Quentin dozens of times but the door never reappeared. 

At some point he accepted that the door wasn’t going to come back and he continued to watch the scene play out in a twisted way to punish himself. If this was the hell he was condemned to for murdering a God, he would attempt to accept that punishment with his head held high. He could at least try to hold it higher than he did when he pushed Quentin away back at Castle Whitespire, unable to even meet the other man’s gaze. 

He did accept it, too, for a time. Yes, it hurt, but at least it was _real_ , unlike the false memory versions he created of Quentin, Margo, and Fen. _Fuck_ , Eliot missed them. He wished he had summoned High Queen Margo, instead. Maybe she would have felt more real after she was gone. He felt like it was years ago that the biggest drama in their lives was whether or not they would win a fucking _Welters_ match, if that had ever even happened at all, who knows anymore. He couldn’t make any of them return after the day in the park, no matter how desperately he tried.

He wanted to tell Fen that she was strong, stronger than she ever realized, stronger than he was. He wanted to tell Margo she didn’t have to always be strong, that he would carry the weight of royalty so she could rest. Eliot wanted to tell Quentin that he loved him, to tell him in a way that wasn’t dismissive or flippant like it was that day. 

He broke down eventually, though. He passed the point of sadness into a dark self-loathing that slowly heated into anger. It was stronger than he felt on that initial viewing, when he shamed himself for being a coward. Instead he was pissed off. He was pissed at himself for not having the courage to let himself feel what he wanted when it came to Quentin Coldwater. They had spent a literal _lifetime_ together. Quentin had _laid him to rest_. Yet somehow, he had the gall to invalidate Quentin’s feelings even if Eliot could tell Quentin hadn’t yet fully figured them out yet. Who the fuck did Eliot think he was to do that? What gave him the right?

He inserted himself into the memory.

\---

“No, I’m saying, what if we gave it a shot? Would that be that crazy? Why the fuck not?” Quentin’s looking at him and this time Eliot replies:

“Q, the first time we got together we were high off of battle magic emotions and Margo was involved. The second time I was damn near the only person you were around for an entire year and once Arielle was a viable option you moved on. What makes you think it would work?” _God_ , why couldn’t he stop self-sabotaging himself?

Quentin scowled. “You told me not to overthink it. You were the one who initiated that call. And Arielle wasn’t the one I spent that last 45 years of my life with, _you_ were. I grew old with you. I raised Ted with you. And after you died I accepted the fact that, well, maybe I wouldn’t be able to find the key but at least I got a life with you. At least something good came from trying.”

Eliot’s face burned. He wasn’t sure if it was from fear or embarrassment or shame. He looked Quentin in the eyes when he spoke, this time. “I’m sorry.” Quentin looked at him expectantly, but remained silent while Eliot gathered his thoughts.

“You make me want to be better, Q,” he says. “I never would have seen myself being where I am now before you came along. I know I gave you shit for being so goddamn earnest about magic and about Fillory, and Margo and Fen helped me become a better ruler - even though we both know that the two of them took to it even better than I did - but you helped make me want to become a _King_ and not just a king. You helped push me towards becoming a better person and towards feeling like maybe things are better than I thought they were, even with all the shit we've had to go through to get there. And maybe the reason I keep trying to push you away is because I'm afraid that if things don't work between us, if I lose you, I might lose that feeling, I might lose everyone. And I was more willing to sacrifice what we could possibly have, even though we have 'proof of concept' that it would be so amazingly good, than risk losing you from my life. And that's not fair to you because if you're willing to take the chance I should be to because I love you, Quentin. God, I love you, so much." 

He kisses Quentin, at first with an intensity that Eliot hopes conveys the feelings behind it. Quentin startles for a minute and Eliot begins to pull away but then Quentin brings his hand to the back of his neck to return the kiss with fervor. After a moment, Eliot breaks away. Not enough to pull their lips apart but enough to soften the kiss to something quiet, intimate, and meaningful. He rests his forehead against Quentin’s for a beat before speaking, his eyes still closed. 

“I’m going to fuck things up, and I know you’ll fuck things up, too. And I know this has the potential to end in disaster and that it may ruin everything, but I want to give it a shot. For real. And when I see you, I’m going to tell you that.”

He feels Quentin pull away, hears the confusion in his voice when he asks, “What do you mean, when you see me?”

And then Eliot hears the front door of the cottage creak open. When he opens his eyes he’s back in the Cottage, standing at the threshold. Eliot outstretches his hand and and fully pulls open the door. 

\---

His hand is still raised when he re-enters his body as it stands in the middle of The Library. The first thing Eliot sees when he opens the door is Quentin standing behind an overturned cart of books. Beautiful, kind-hearted Quentin with a shocked look upon his face. For the briefest and naivest of seconds, Eliot thinks it’s because Quentin realized that Eliot had regained control over himself. 

“Q,“ Eliot begins. Whatever he had planned on saying next never escapes his mouth because he sees sees the red line across the expanse of Quentin’s neck, that is just starting to jaggedly rip open. Blood begins to stream down Quentin’s throat, staining his pale skin red and seeping into the black fabric of his sweater. Eliot sees a flash of blonde hair before Quentin’s eyes roll back in his head as his body collapses to the ground. The sound of Quentin’s body slamming against the cart is quickly overpowered by the sound of screaming. Eliot doesn’t know who the scream comes from: maybe Alice, maybe himself, maybe all of them. He does know that it’s a piercing, broken sound that will never stop ringing in his ears. 

“Quentin!” Eliot yells as he begins to run forward, stumbling on unsteady legs. Before he can reach Quentin he hears someone yell, “no!” and Eliot is lifted off the ground and slammed into a bookshelf several yards away. Books fall on top of him and he’s so disoriented that he doesn’t immediately try and pick himself back up. Before he can, he’s lifted from the ground again, this time by his throat. An invisible force tightens around his neck and his feet dangle helplessly several inches from the floor. 

Alice stands before him, one hand outstretched holding a large black axe that she appears to be channeling her magic through. Her eyes are red and her voice is raw when she screams, “I’ll destroy you!” His eyes flicker desperately between Alice, who’s chanting something low under her breath and Quentin, who is still motionless on the ground, now being cradled by Julia. He sees Julia’s lips and hands moving but Quentin’s body remains still. Then he sees Kady, lying some distance behind Quentin, being tended to by Zelda and Margo. Where did they come from? They weren’t there the day at the park. What the hell happened? How did this happen? He must have found the breath to say those last words aloud because Alice cries, “you killed him!” 

If he weren’t being held afloat by Alice he would have crumpled to the ground. “No, no no no. It’s me, Alice, I would nev-” but she twists the wrist that’s holding the axe and he chokes, unable to find air. He kicks his legs violently as things start to go dark. 

“You don’t get to say that anymore! Quentin trusted you! He stopped me from killing you once before because he believed Eliot was in there somewhere and could be saved but Eliot would _never_ ,” she trails off, letting out a sob. Eliot slowly realizes that The Monster cast the spell slashed Quentin’s throat. It must have happened fractions of a second before he regained control. His hand drew the line. He’s the reason Quentin… Something inside him shatters. He stops fighting against Alice’s spell, against the inevitable.

Alice has begun casting again and he wonders how much longer he has before he suffocates when he hears Margo yell, “wait!” He hears footsteps rushing towards them and then she says, “It’s Eliot! It’s Eliot, I can tell,” her voice is twisted with panic and desperation. 

“Just because The Monster’s in the body of your best friend,” Alice starts but Margo cuts her off and says, “no, his energy is different. The Monster’s spirit isn’t there anymore. You must have trapped it right as-” 

Eliot watches Alice’s expression change, as she realizes what Margo is telling her and she lets out a cry and drops the axe, her hand shaking. Eliot falls to the ground coughing. Margo rushes towards him and wraps her arms around him. “Are you okay?” he hears her say but her voice sounds miles away, like he’s underwater. He stammers out incoherent sounds as he picks himself up off the library floor and half stumbles, half crawls his way over to Quentin and Julia. 

Julia is still casting but her words are coming out in sobs and whatever form she once had has fallen apart. “Q, it’s me, I’m here,” he says. The blood around Quentin’s throat has darkened to a sickly brown and his eyes are glassy. “Quentin, please,” he begs, his hands cupping Quentin’s cheeks. He looks around, desperate, for someone to do something. 

Zelda and Kady, who’s finally sitting upright, sit several feet away with their hands over their mouths. Alice collapsed to the floor next to where she dropped the axe, Margo’s arms around her. Margo looks at him, silent, with tears streaming down her face. He turns back to Quentin and Julia. Julia’s hands rest limply on Quentin's chest and her whole body shakes as she cries. 

Eliot’s hands slowly fall from Quentin’s face and fall helplessly into his lap. He was wrong before. This was hell.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written something this dark before and didn't expect my first foray into fic for this series to be this. I hope it isn't either a) melodramatic, b) poorly characterized, or c) just flat-out awful. I also hope it's very non-canonical.
> 
> I don't own The Magicians nor any of the actual lines pulled from 4x05.


End file.
